


Looking for Heaven Found the Devil in Me

by TheAutotheist



Series: The Rubble or Our Sins [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky and the Winter Soldier are separate characters, Bucky escapes early, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-23 15:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2552126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAutotheist/pseuds/TheAutotheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was asleep, he was still Bucky Barnes. When he was encased in ice, he was still the punk from Brooklyn. But when he was awake he was someone else. Whenever they thawed him out, he became a cold assassin, with no heart, no soul, and no will of his own.</p><p>Or, the one in which Bucky escapes from Hydra in order to find Steve's remains and ends up getting way more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When he was asleep, he was still Bucky Barnes. When he was encased in ice, he was still the punk from Brooklyn. But when he was awake he was someone else. Whenever they thawed him out, he became a cold assassin, with no heart, no soul, and no will of his own.

It didn’t start that way. They used to be the same person. And Bucky fought tooth and nail against everything Hydra tried to do to him and everything Hydra tried to make him do. But his consciousness slowly receded into the back of his mind. Something else was created from all the mind wipes and the brainwashing and the torturous training.

They called him the Winter Soldier.

Bucky didn’t know what the Winter Soldier did when he had control of his body, not completely. And he pretty much didn’t want to know, because whatever it was, it was awful. Every now and then the Winter Soldier would drag up his consciousness to the barest form of awareness so he could receive clarification on something that confused him. It seemed Hydra had only ever taught him how to kill, so he had no idea how society worked. So he would ask Bucky, and as soon as he received a satisfactory answer, he would push Bucky’s consciousness back to where he had been sleeping.

The first time this happened, Bucky tried to take back control of his body, but the Winter Soldier was too strong. He was only aware of struggling against the Winter Soldier’s control for a minute, and the next time he came to, he was on ice again, and the Winter Soldier’s mind had gone to sleep. Eventually he stopped trying. He would answer the Winter Soldier’s question and then drift back to the place of unconsciousness he inhabited while the assassin did his work.

That was what he was about to do when the Winter Soldier dragged him up during one of his missions, having already forgotten whatever question had been posed to him. But since the Winter Soldier had asked Bucky for clarification on something he could see, Bucky briefly had use of their eyes, and before his mind drifted away again, he saw a poster.

The red, white and blue color scheme caught his eye immediately. He would have cried out if he had control of the vocal cords. It looked just like one of the propaganda posters of Captain America from during the war. But it wasn’t propaganda, and it wasn’t advertising the shows Captain America used to do, instead it advertised a memorial to the end of World War II and a tribute to the hero of the war, Captain America, on the fiftieth anniversary of his death.

When Bucky’s consciousness didn’t slip away on his own, the Winter Soldier prepared to push him back down, but Bucky screamed as hard as he could, _WAIT!!!_

Perhaps it was the desperation he projected, as opposed to aggression, that made the Winter Soldier stop. Bucky used the opportunity to absorb everything about the poster, but it wasn’t very forth-coming on information. Steve was dead? How could Steve be dead? And fifty years? Bucky knew he’d been on ice a long time, but how could the war be over and done with that long? How long did it continue after he fell? Bucky realized he didn’t know anything about what had happened after Hydra found him.

This poster made it seem like Captain America died during the war. But he was Captain fucking America. Bucky had seen first hand how it would be nearly impossible to kill him. Steve couldn’t be dead.

“The mission,” the Winter Soldier said quietly, startling Bucky out of his train of thought. He had been thinking so loudly that he had forgotten the Winter Soldier still had control of their body.

 _Fuck the mission!_ he thought back. _I need to find out what happened to Steve._

“The mission is all that matters.”

_Steve matters to me._

The Winter Soldier was quiet for a while.

 _Please,_ Bucky tried. _I need to know what happened to Steve._

“One hour,” the Winter Soldier said at last. “Then I will complete my mission.”

Without any preparation or warning, Bucky suddenly had complete control of his body. The Winter Soldier was still there, still lurking and watching, but he let Bucky steer.

Bucky hadn’t had control of their body since… since… It hurt to think about it, to try to remember himself separate from the Winter Soldier, himself as he’d been when he’d been Sergeant Barnes.

Bucky raised his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose and was surprised to feel metal against his face. He opened eyes he hadn’t realized he had closed and looked at the palm of his left hand.

Joints of metal moved against each other and it was surprising how much dexterity he had to move his fingers and hand. As he raised the hand up, he could see his left arm really was gone, replaced with metal. It wasn’t that Bucky had forgotten. He remembered the painful, awful procedure. He remembered waking up, delirious, and seeing a bloody stump where his arm used to be. He remembered looking past blood and flesh fingertips to Steve’s hand, only inches from his own. And the last thing he heard Steve say was his name, screaming at him as he fell.

 _One hour,_ the Winter Soldier reminded him.

That startled Bucky out of his reverie. He had forgotten the whole reason he had control of his body again. He had to find out what happened to the war, what happened to Steve.

Suddenly having control of an assassin’s body, however, didn’t help much on that front. He discovered they were just inside an alleyway, out of the circle of light cast by a nearby street light. It was a wooden power pole that had the poster about Captain America, staring at him from across the sidewalk.

Bucky stepped further back into the alley, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. When he turned to look at it, he saw a dark window, and that the movement had been his own reflection. Though the face staring at him was almost different enough that he thought he was looking at a completely different person.

His hair was long, much longer than he ever even thought it could grow, and it was dirty. He had more than just a few day’s stubble. The Winter Soldier really had taken over his face. That was when he noticed he was wearing all black, made up of leather and canvas, covered with straps and belts, that held more weapons than Bucky thought one person could even use. He was a fucking arsenal. He had always known the Winter Soldier was lethal, but he was beginning to realize just how deadly the assassin actually was.

Unfortunately, he would not be able to go into any public place looking like the completely homicidal psychopath he actually was. So the first order of business was the find at least a jacket, something to hide the combat uniform.

_Confirmed._

Bucky blacked out. When he came to again, he was in a different place, behind another building, further away from street lights. He had on a baseball cap and a long coat. The black combat uniform was still on underneath, but he could at least hide it. Bucky pulled the baseball cap off and looked at it. New York Yankees. Did that mean he was in New York? Bucky pushed his hair back behind his ears and pulled the baseball cap back on his head. Though honestly, did it have to be the Yankees? He would have much prefered a Brooklyn Dodgers cap.

“Don’t do that.”

_Part of the mission is to not be caught, not be seen. You would have been caught. I found a solution._

“Did you kill anyone? No, wait, don’t tell me.” Bucky sighed and pulled the brim of the cap lower down over his eyes. “Just… don’t do that until I’m done.”

_Fifty minutes._

Bucky huffed in frustration. He stuck his left hand into the pocket of the stolen or borrowed coat and slowly walked around the building so he could get his bearings. When he got out onto the street, he realized he had been right, he was in New York, Manhattan to be specific. Though he only figured that out because of the street names and the large building next to him. Everything else was different from the last time he had been in Manhattan.

Since he needed information, the best place to go would be the library. He wouldn’t have known that if Steve hadn’t spent so much time in public libraries when they were kids. Whenever he found something cool, he would grab Bucky and try to whisper over his excitement as he pointed out whatever fact he had found in his current book.

Without trying to be too obvious, he made his way to the library and slipped in the door without anyone paying him any mind. It was probably pretty close to closing, based on how dark it was outside. So he was lucky that no one was near the card catalog and he was able to riffle through it in private. Though he did keep glancing over his shoulder.

Bucky’s original plan had been to find any kind of War World II history books and see if they mentioned what happened to Captain America after the train. He hadn’t expected someone to write a whole book about Captain America, though, and was pleasantly surprised. He snatched the card and tried not to run over to the appropriate shelf.

“Come on, come on,” he mumbled to himself, just praying the book hadn’t been checked out. “Yes!” he said as he found the number he was looking for and yanked the book down off the shelf. It had a drawing of Steve’s round Captain America shield on the front. Bucky stared at that for a second. He had only handled the shield once. And then he had been blown off a train.

Not wanting to linger, he flipped the book open. The first part was about Steve’s life before the war and becoming Captain America. Bucky was surprised to see he was mentioned in there too, and not just as a fellow Howling Commando. He flipped through several more chapters about the rescue of the 107th from Hydra, and the missions of the Howling Commandos until he found one about the capture of Arnim Zola. While he had to know what happened to Steve, he couldn’t help but pause and see what this historian had to say about his apparent “death.”

There was a copy of Steve’s report of what had happened. It was sparse. Bucky was a little satisfied to see they had completed the mission of capturing Zola, though it was fifty years after the fact. Of Bucky, all that Steve had written was, “Sergeant Barnes and I were caught in an ambush. During an exchange of fire, a blast from one of the tesseract-powered weapons blew a hole in the train and threw Sergeant Barnes out. He fell to his death.”

Bucky looked at the report. There were no details. Nothing about how Bucky had distracted him, and that was how Steve had been knocked off his feet by the blast from that weapon. How Bucky had tried to pick up the vibranium shield, but only succeeded in taking the full brunt of another blast. How he had barely managed to grab the side rail as he swung above a two hundred foot chasm. How Steve had climbed onto the outside of a moving train to save him. How he had almost grabbed Steve’s hand when the metal gave way.

He turned the page and it was the beginning of a new chapter, titled “The End of Captain America.” After the Commandos captured Zola, he revealed the location of the final Hydra base. The SSR launched a full-scale attack on the base, lead by Captain America and the Howling Commandos. In pursuit of the head of Hydra, Schmidt, Captain America managed to get aboard a massive bomber jet headed for the United States. Based on radio transmissions, he killed Schmidt, but was unable to stop the plane, and so forced it into the ocean. Despite many search attempts by engineer and military contractor Howard Stark, neither the plane nor the body of Captain America were ever found.

Bucky leaned back against the bookshelf. It wasn’t just that Steve had died in action. He had sacrificed himself. It was so… Steve. Always too noble for his own good. Bucky couldn’t believe someone like that could be dead, while here he was, still alive, even if it was barely a life. After everything Steve had lived through, after everything he given and let be done to him, he had died.

Would things have turned out different if Bucky had been there to help? Would he be dead too? Would he have lived and had to listen to Steve’s last radio-transmitted words before the plane plunged him into a watery grave? He could have at least done something, even if the outcome was the same. Instead, he had been captured, useless.

_Time is up._

“Wait, just give me a min— ”

 

 

Bucky’s consciousness drifted back slowly. He was again in cryofreeze, unable to move and unable to see. That was why he was awake again. _Did you complete your mission?_ he thought with some bitterness.

 _Yes,_ was the response from the Winter Soldier.

_I needed more time._

_The longer we strayed from the mission, the lower the chance of success. You would not have discovered any more information there._

Bucky wanted to scream at him, but the whole conversation took place in his mind. His vocal cords were just as locked down by the cold as the rest of his body. He would have liked to read the rest of that book, to have found more books about Captain America. He wanted to know when the last time Howard had done a search for the crashed plane was.

He couldn’t believe Howard hadn’t found Steve’s body. Sure, the Atlantic ocean was a big place, but they had to have some idea of where the plane went down. Howard Stark was probably the smartest person Bucky had ever met, so it was hard to imagine even he couldn’t find the wreckage.

_They never found your body either._

The Winter Soldier had been so quiet, Bucky had thought his consciousness had drifted off to sleep, and so was surprised by his comment.

_What’s that supposed to mean?_

_That they never found your body._

_Cause Hydra found me first._ The Winter Soldier was silent. _Do you think… are you suggesting_ Hydra _knows what happened to the plane? That they found Steve first?_ An even more disturbing thought struck Bucky. What if Steve survived the crash, just as Bucky had survived the fall? It was Hydra’s plane after all, maybe they had a better way of tracking it. They could be doing to Steve what they had been doing to Bucky for the past fifty years. And even if he hadn’t survived, they wanted to unlock the secret to the super soldier serum. Who knew what they could make of Steve’s remains.

 _I have a mission for you,_ he told the Winter Soldier and waited to see if he would respond.

There was quiet for a long time, and then the Winter Soldier replied, _What is the mission?_

_Find out what Hydra knows about the plane, Schmidt, and Captain America. Next time they pull you out of here._

There was another pause, and then, _Understood._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really glad I finally decided what I wanted to do with this fic. I started this partly because I had written another fic where Bucky escaped from Hydra early, and it ended up being awfully sad, so I wanted to do something that wasn't so sad, and partly because I wanted to play with the concept of the Winter Soldier being a split personality.
> 
> I originally thought about making this compliant with the second movie, but then decided against it because based on how he acts, I don't actually think he has dissociative identity disorder.
> 
> This story rambled for a long time before I knew where it was going, but I'm happy where it ended.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Bucky woke up, he wasn’t on ice. At first, he assumed the Winter Soldier had pulled up his consciousness to answer a question again. But as he got his bearings, he realized they weren’t out on a mission, not yet. The Winter Soldier stood silently while a man spoke to him in Russian, probably giving him orders. Bucky’s Russian was very rusty, at best, as the Winter Soldier always had control. By the tone of voice, he could tell the words were instructions, but for the most part, they sounded like a garbled mess to his ears.

Bucky couldn’t control his body at all, but he could at least see and hear, even if the things he saw and heard made no sense to him. The man finished saying whatever it was he wanted to say to the Winter Soldier, and then walked away. Bucky knew that as his eyes followed the man, it was really the Winter Soldier watching him walk away. Once he was out of sight, the Winter Soldier turned and walked the opposite direction.

_What are you doing?_ Bucky asked, a bit hesitant. He was unsure if he should alert the Winter Soldier to his presence if he hadn’t meant to pull up Bucky’s consciousness.

“Mission: break into Hydra’s files and discover what they know about Schmidt and Captain America.”

Bucky really hoped the WInter Soldier hadn’t really said all that out loud. But it was hard to tell, because he heard him the same way whether the thought was vocalized or not. _And the plane. Find out if Hydra knows where the plane crashed._

The Winter Soldier didn’t acknowledge the command, but he continued walking all the same. Even though Bucky knew he was already dressed in the black and combat boots, he realized he couldn’t hear the Winter Soldier walk at all. While Bucky had certainly done his share of sneaking around stealthily during the war, he didn’t think he would be able to walk down a tiled hallway like this without making any noises.

The Winter Soldier stopped in front of a locked door with no keyhole. There was a number pad next to the door with a small screen above it. He held his left hand over the keys, and then typed five of them. The small screen turned green and the door popped open. Bucky wasn’t really sure how the Winter Soldier had figured that out, but he wasn’t going to question it.

He slipped into the room and placed a thin piece of something (metal, perhaps) between the door and jamb, so it appeared closed, but wasn’t actually locked. The lights flickered on by themselves, but the lighting was dim. The room was full of tables with televisions on them. No, they weren’t televisions. They looked like TVs without their antennae, and with typewriter keyboards in front of the screens. There were also filing cabinet-looking things in the back of the room. Long wires ran from the cabinets to the backs of the monitors.

_What is this? I thought you were going to break into files._

“Computers,” the Winter Soldier said, which didn’t really answer Bucky’s question. He leaned down in front of one of the monitors and hit the enter key. Green letters flashed on the screen, and then the Winter Soldier typed code words and commands that Bucky couldn’t make heads or tails of, but he watched none the less. Apparently whatever the Winter Soldier did worked, because real words in real sentences appeared on the screen.

“‘The Valkyrie was boarded and hijacked by Captain Steven Rogers, AKA Captain America. He reported the death of Johann Schmidt via radio and informed the SSR agent Peggy Carter that he would force the jet down, before the line went dead,’” the Winter Soldier read off the screen. “‘It is believed the Tesseract was found and is now in the possession of SHIELD, but none of the inside operatives have been able to retrieve it.’”

_What’s SHIELD?_ Bucky asked.

“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement Logistics Division.”

_Hence the acronym…_

“Founded by Howard Stark, and the remains of the SSR. Co-directed with Peggy Carter.”

_Wait, what does it mean by operatives? Hydra spies within this SHIELD organization?_

“After the death of Johann Schmidt, Hydra went underground. A new secret division was created from within SHIELD by Arnim Zola.”

_Zola? What the fuck is Zola doing there? How could Stark and Carter let that bastard into this SHIELD?_

“Recruited after the war as part of a group of German scientists thought to have strategic value.”

_So Zola got in good with the Allies while he was busy fucking with my head, tearing off my arm, and…_ If he had been really speaking, he would have had to stop to take a deep breath. While the Winter Soldier was unaffected, on the inside Bucky was fuming. He had to find some way to tell Stark and Carter. If they thought Zola was on their side, while he was secretly keeping Hydra running, then they were in danger. But how the hell could he get a message like that out from within Hydra, especially when most of the time his body was completely controlled by the Winter Soldier? And more important than that, he had to find out what had happened to Steve. _We’re getting off track. Go back to the plane._

The Winter Soldier scrolled through the green text on the screen. “The files pertaining to the flight plan of the Valkyrie were confiscated by the SSR during the raid. They were encoded, but it is believed SHIELD has thus far been unable to decode them. This is the key.”

Bucky looked at the encryption on the screen. _So SHIELD has the papers, but is unable to read them. And Hydra has the code, but doesn’t have the papers._ The flight plan would probably help a lot. It was no wonder Stark hadn’t found the plane if he was only able to search based on where he thought the plane would be. _We need to get those papers._

“Is that the next mission?”

Bucky thought about it. It was all fine and good to command the Winter Soldier (and the fact that he followed those commands was still weird to Bucky) to try to break into SHIELD and steal secret papers that Hydra had originally written. But then what? For one, he’d never be able to escape from Hydra. For another, how would he even find SHIELD? But even assuming he managed to do all that, and actually got his hands on the papers and the code, what was he supposed to do with them? Go to Stark and Carter and tell them he was only sometimes a psychopathic assassin, and he really just wanted to find Steve’s body? Would the Winter Soldier’s brainwashing even let him reveal Hydra to SHIELD? And if the Winter Soldier suddenly decided his mission conflicted with Bucky’s, then he was screwed. Bucky had never managed to overpower the Winter Soldier.

_Yes,_ he decided on at last, in answer to the Winter Soldier’s question.

“Hydra will become suspicious if their mission is not completed.”

Bucky sighed. _Then do their mission. I guess this will have to wait until the next time they let us loose in the outside world. Do you think you can actually escape from the handlers and break into SHIELD?_

“Yes.”

The quick response startled Bucky. But then, it seemed like the Winter Soldier didn’t spend a lot of time thinking things over.

_We’re going to find that plane. Even if this contradicts Hydra’s orders for you._

“Not possible.”

_You can’t disobey direct orders from Hydra?_ Bucky thought about it for a moment. _I think I can. Give me control, and I’ll do it._

“They will know.”

_Then we’ll have to do this right. Finding Steve is my only mission. You gonna help me finish it?_

Maybe the Winter Soldier would tell him no and shut him down. Maybe he would go about doing whatever missions he had and he would never wake Bucky up again. It was hard to be completely at someone else’s mercy, especially when that person walked around in his body with his face. Bucky had never liked not having control in a situation. It was a trait he’d always shared with Steve, now that he thought about it. He wished now that he hadn’t taken for granted all the times they had together, growing up in New York. Especially cause he would never get to talk to Steve again, tell him…

“I will do this,” the Winter Soldier interrupted his thoughts. “Next time.”

_Good._

Bucky wasn’t aware of anything until he was back on ice again. Apparently the Winter Soldier had shut him down and gone about completing his Hydra-assigned mission.

He felt the Winter Soldier waiting, lurking. Perhaps he was waiting for instructions, which was ridiculous, because Bucky had been completely out since the computer room. So Bucky ignored him and then did actually start to think about what exactly they would do if they managed to escape from Hydra.

Obviously he and the Winter Soldier would need to tag team to get out of Hydra. Bucky would have to take over when they assigned the mission or when they tried to shut him down. And the Winter Soldier would need do any of the spy/assassin stuff. Who knew if that was even possible? But the Winter Soldier seemed to be willing to help Bucky and betray Hydra. And Bucky didn’t think the Winter Soldier would do anything to get them killed, because he did have a certain level of self-preservation.

The Winter Soldier said he could get into SHIELD too. And he would be able to take most of that on his own, because they wouldn’t have to worry about the programing buried deep in his brain that Hydra would be able to use. Bucky didn’t doubt they would actually have to break into SHIELD. He wouldn’t be able to reveal himself to them until he had the flight plan and the code.

Howard Stark was the genius, and he’d already been searching for Steve. So Bucky decided that once he had the pieces, he would find Stark and Carter, because they would know him, even if it had been years for them. And with Stark’s resources, SHIELD’s resources, they would definitely find that plane and Steve.

_Howard Stark?_

So the Winter Soldier had been listening.

_Yeah, when we get the things we need, we’re going to find him and Carter. They’ll help us._

_Not possible._

Bucky was going to start getting really annoyed if the Winter Soldier kept using that phrase. _Why is it not possible?_

_Howard Stark is dead._

_What?_ Bucky thought he had a good grip on vaguely what year they were in. Howard Stark wasn’t that old. How could he be dead?

_It was the mission._

_You… you killed Howard Stark?_

_It was the mission._

That _was the mission you did? Why didn’t you say anything when you brought up SHIELD?_

_You didn’t ask._

_That was… You killed the person at SHIELD who could help us find Steve’s body! We can’t go to SHIELD now that you’ve killed the director!_

_It was the mission,_ the Winter Soldier repeated.

_Fuck the mission!_ Bucky screamed. It would have felt better to be able to scream until his voice was hoarse, but that wasn’t an option considering the whole conversation was taking place inside his psychotic head. _We needed SHIELD for this to work! How the hell are we going to find Steve without SHIELD’s resources?_

_We don’t need SHIELD. Any equipment we needed can be taken from this facility or stolen from SHIELD along with the files._

_What? Are you serious?_ Bucky realized after he asked the question that of course he was serious. The Winter Soldier was always serious. _It probably isn’t any crazier than the idea to break out of here in the first place… But it’s not just that. I knew Howard Stark, worked with him._ Bucky paused. He hated knowing details like this about the Winter Soldier's assassinations. He could trick himself into thinking it really was someone else, but the truth was, it was his body, his face, his hands. He still looked like Bucky Barnes while he killed all these people in cold blood. _Did he know it was you? Did he see you? Did he think…_

_No. It was designed to look like a car crash. They never saw me._

Bucky didn’t want to know. He really didn’t. _They?_

_His wife, Maria Stark, was in the car._

If Bucky had control of his body, he’d probably be hurling now. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle killing. He’d done plenty of killing himself, when he was only himself. But that was different. That was a war. He was a soldier. He’d killed other soldiers. The Winter Soldier killed innocent people Hydra considered threats. Their blood was on Bucky’s hands.

_No. It was my mission. I killed them._

Was the Winter Soldier trying to comfort him? Pushing the weirdness of that concept aside, _It’s still me. You’re still me. You’re some messed up part of my mind._

_That doesn’t matter. I am me and you are you. And you did not kill my targets. I did._

Bucky sighed. _Was Carter a target too?_

_No. She is still alive._

_That’s good at least._ Bucky was surprised he felt honestly relieved. It was true that during the war he was jealous of Carter, even though he reasonably should have known it was backwards. He was jealous of the way Steve would pay attention to her, and the fact that she was a dame who was good enough for Steve. He could never really pinpoint what it meant. Not that it mattered anymore. Steve was dead. It was probably for the best. If Steve found out about all the people he’d killed… Steve would hate him.

_We have a long cryofreeze in front of us. That means plenty of time to plan. It has to be solid. How are we going to break out of Hydra?_

They went over a plan, and then they went over it again, and then again, until they had something even Bucky believed wouldn’t fail. But he knew all too well that most things never went to plan.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The first part was to get a handle on switching back and forth. Bucky felt they couldn’t take the time to practice that during this assignment, and then try to break out the following time they thawed him out. The Winter Soldier pointed out the plane and Steve’s body weren’t going anywhere, and Bucky reminded him that every “mission” he completed left another person dead. Considering the Winter Soldier was always minimally responsive during the first period of wakefulness, this was as good a time as any.

Bucky had never been conscious for this part, never even seen it. It was not fun coming back into his body when it felt like this. It had been a long time since he’d gotten so drunk he’d puked. But that was what this felt like. He spent the first hour awake puking his guts out. Something about expelling anything in his body that would otherwise make him sick later. They spent the time switching back and forth. The Hydra agents never noticed anything, especially with the Winter Soldier telling Bucky what to do when he was in control.

Next they fed him and then ran diagnostics on the arm. During the Winter Soldier’s moments of control, Bucky noticed he paid close attention to what the technicians were doing to the arm, even though he feigned unresponsiveness. It was information they’d probably need later, but most the science stuff went over Bucky’s head.

It seemed like a good time to make an escape, to Bucky. Everyone had their guard relaxed because they were so used to the Winter Soldier as a passive object until he received his mission. But that wasn’t the plan. Even as he thought it, the Winter Soldier reminded him.

_We wait._

They had decided the optimal time would be after he was outfitted for the mission, but before the details were given to him. He would have his arsenal, but wouldn’t have to worry about trying the programming in his brain that made it impossible to go again Hydra’s orders. That was the part that would be mostly up to Bucky, because the Winter Soldier would shut down at certain commands.

There was no way to test if those commands worked when Bucky was in control, since technically, it was the same brain. They would just have to try and see what happened. Bucky silently sent up a prayer.

_You’ve taken everything from me, even Steve, the one good thing in my life. Just give me this. If this doesn’t work, we will never get another chance to escape. Please let this work._

The Winter Soldier was the one who gave the signal. He knew what to look for, when the time would be right. And then suddenly, Bucky was left alone in his body, facing a tall, bulkily-built Russian man. So he did the natural thing and punched the man in the gut. With his left hand.

Taking out the other agents that came his way was easier than he thought. His body was stronger than it had ever been, and the metal arm was so powerful he could knock a man across the room. Occasionally the Winter Soldier would tell him which way to move to avoid an attack, or how to deliver the maximum damage, but he would duck down again when new people came at him, screaming in Russian. They seemed shocked when the things they said had no effect on him.

After he had the room cleared out, the Winter Soldier took over again and got them to the old archive. They needed the physical file with the code. Apparently the Winter Soldier had a good memory for someone who constantly had his mind wiped. At this point, Bucky was beginning to think all that machine did was hurt like hell and further separate their personalities. The Winter Soldier remembered the file number and was able to find the physical code in less than sixty seconds. He stuffed it inside their uniform and grabbed as many weapons out of Hydra’s cache as he could fit on his person, which turned out to be a lot.

Bucky would take over when new people attacked, but for the most part, the Winter Soldier had it. He stole a helicopter and blew the bay doors with explosions he had rigged a moment before, so no one could follow them. Bucky wasn’t really surprised the Winter Soldier knew how to fly. It just made sense with everything else programmed into his brain. Once they were far enough away, the Winter Soldier landed and then began examining his left arm.

_What are you looking for?_

“Bugs.” He pulled aside one of the metal plates on his wrist and pulled a small device that flashed red. He crushed it in his hand and tossed the pieces outside the helicopter before taking off again. He had also disabled Hydra’s radio equipment into the chopper, all to make sure they wouldn’t be found.

The Winter Soldier really was efficient, Bucky thought. This was why Hydra needed a human. Only a human could be this ruthless. Then they outfitted him with mechanical parts to make him stronger. He was a perfect weapon. The one flaw in their plan was that the weapon could think for himself.

_One down,_ Bucky thought.

“One to go,” the Winter Soldier said.

 

For being a super secret evil lair, Hydra hadn’t been very well fortified. They also probably hadn’t expected an attack to come from within. SHIELD was a completely different story. And they didn’t have a lot of time before every Hydra agent would be after him, and that probably included several SHIELD agents, depending on how many had infiltrated the organization.

Fortunately, this part the Winter Soldier could do mostly on his own, with minimal help from Bucky. But Bucky stayed hyper-aware, just under the surface, anyway. Finding the main SHIELD headquarters wasn’t hard. It was in the nation's capital. And cornering a lone SHIELD agent so they could steal his suit and ID card was easy enough. They had ditched the helicopter just outside the city. If things went according to plan, they would come back to it, if not, then the Winter Soldier made sure to stash as many weapons as he could carry.

While the Winter Soldier could easily be a one-man army—just as Steve could, Bucky thought with a twinge—he didn’t know how to interact with people. So once they pulled on the SHIELD suit over the weapons, Bucky had to take over to sneak into SHIELD.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Bucky said when he caught his reflection in the shiny reflection of a building window. Sure, with the SHIELD uniform, he looked like he could be one of them. And the gloves hid his metal hand. But he still looked wild, and slightly insane. “They’ll never let us in looking like this.” He brushed his hair back with his hands and used a leather tie to tie back his hair. He had to say that he didn’t really look like Bucky or the Winter Soldier with his hair back. He also didn’t look like so much of a psychopath.

“Now let’s hope they don’t look at us too closely.”

_Get past the main security. Once we get to a computer, I can find where they’re keeping the items they seized from Hydra._

“Piece of cake, right?” Bucky said. If he had been saying it to Steve, years and years ago, it would have been a joke. But now it came out too bitterly to be a joke.

As it turned out, it was a piece of cake. SHIELD employed so many people, that it was almost impossible for them to notice an imposter in their ranks. It made him wonder if Hydra recruited SHIELD agents, or if the spies started as Hydra agents, and then infiltrated SHIELD. The security guard barely looked at him before waving him through the main gate, and the ID card gave them access to the massive building. Seriously, this couldn’t all be government funding. Some of this had to be Stark funding, considering how nice it was. Bucky tried really hard not to stare as he walked in, but to instead look like he belonged.

The main entranceway didn’t have metal detectors, but it split off into the three sections of the building, and one of them did. They were fancy-looking metal detectors too. He watched for a moment and saw agents unclipping handguns from their belts and putting them through special machines before stepping through themselves. He subconsciously clenched his left hand. Never mind the freaking arsenal strapped to his body, he would never make it through a metal detector with his arm.

Whatever was in that section, they would never get there the proper way. So he headed towards the section that had very few people. Most of the suits seemed to head towards the middle section, which was probably administration. He turned down an empty hallway and mumbled, “Now what? Tell me we don’t need to go through metal detectors.”

_Computer,_ the Winter Soldier reminded him.

He found a wall terminal once he rounded a corner. Part of him wondered why very few people were around. He glanced around for cameras, before approaching the terminal. “Do your thing.”

The Winter Soldier took over and went to work. Bucky didn’t really understand why they thought the Winter Soldier would need to know anything about technology or computers, but now he was really glad that had been part of his conditioning. They probably figured he would make a better spy/assassin if he could hack a security system.

“Archives and storage,” he said, not pausing in his work.

_Oh, that’s why no one’s around. But if anyone finds us, it’ll be even more suspicious._ He watched what the Winter Soldier did, numbers and schematics flying by. _What’s down the way with the metal detectors?_

“R&D.”

If SHIELD was anything like the SSR, then they were probably making some nasty toys down that way. No wonder they wanted to be careful who had access.

“Found it,” the Winter Soldier said. “The storage unit containing everything associated with the Valkyrie.”

_Except for the Tesseract._

“That is not kept in storage.”

_What does that mean?_ Bucky would have shuddered if he had control of the body. He remembered the weapons Hydra had created with the power of the Tesseract. _Is SHIELD creating weapons?_

“Unknown. But, yes, probably.”

Well, that didn’t bode well. _Okay, whatever. We didn’t come for the Tesseract. You know where Hydra’s notes are?_

“Yes.”

_Then let’s go._

Bucky let the Winter Soldier lead this time. They passed very few people. And the few they did pass, Bucky prodded the Winter Soldier to nod his head at, to stop him from looking too suspicious. The storage unit they wanted was on the fourth floor, behind a door that his ID card apparently had clearance to open. SHIELD really wasn’t worried about anyone going through this stuff. All of the dangerous things were stored in much more secure locations.

They wandered through rows and rows of metal shelves and wooden boxes, each with serial numbers stamped on them. Occasionally they would pass cardboard archival boxes of papers and notes. The Winter Soldier stopped by one such row and then walked down it carefully, eyes darting back and forth until he found the serial number he was looking for. He pulled the box down off the shelf and set it on the floor. He rummaged through it for a moment, and then pulled out a folder with German scrawl and Hydra’s seal on the front. The first page on the inside was a schematic of the Valkyrie, though all the notes were written in a kind of pygmy-German that Bucky couldn’t make heads or tails of.

The Winter Soldier pulled the key to the code out of the inside of his uniform and unfolded it, comparing it to the various Valkyrie notes SHIELD had. “This matches,” he said at last. He flipped through a few more papers, and there. It was the flight plan for the Valkyrie, and the attack plan for the bombs.

_Great. Now let’s get out of here before someone catches us._

The Winter Soldier slipped both the folded up code and the file of Valkyrie papers back into an inside pocket in his uniform, before arranging the SHIELD suit to cover it up. He put the archival box back exactly how it had been. With any luck, no one would ever realize anything was missing. Bucky couldn’t imagine anyone looked in these boxes very much.

Which wouldn’t do for what else he had planned. He didn’t know if the Winter Soldier knew about his other plan, since they’d never discussed it, but the Winter Soldier was probably privy to his thoughts. As they headed back through the archive, something caught his eye.

_Wait._

The Winter Soldier tensed up, thinking they had been spotted, but Bucky waved off the fear. _Give me control._

He felt his consciousness settle back into his body. Sure enough, along with the other things to do with the Valkyrie were notes about Captain America. He grabbed one particular disk from a box and stashed it as well.

“There’s one more thing I need to do.”

_What?_ the Winter Soldier asked levelly.

“Leave SHIELD a message. Someone needs to tell them about Hydra.”

The Winter Soldier was silent for a moment. _Get back to a computer terminal._

So Bucky followed his instructions, and then let him take control again, so he could leave a message embedded into SHIELD’s database.

“They won’t find it right away, which should ensure Hydra does not find it first.”

_Good._ Bucky paused. _Thanks. I know this wasn’t part of the mission, but…_

“I have cut ties with Hydra. If they find us, they will kill us. This is in my best interest as well.” Bucky decided not to question that.

Making their way out of storage and archives, the Winter Soldier ended up in a different area than where they had come in. It was a hangar bay, much the same as the one at Hydra’s base, where they stole a helicopter. He felt the Winter Soldier’s face turn up in a smirk. It was so odd, that Bucky was momentarily struck silent, and didn’t try to stop him as he made his way towards the nearest…

_What is that?_ Bucky finally asked. It wasn’t a chopper. And it wasn’t a jet, or a plane. This was something new, and probably something SHIELD would miss a lot more than a couple of decades-old German papers.

“It’s a quinjet,” the Winter Soldier told him. “We won’t get where we’re going with a helicopter. We need the quinjet.”

_Are you crazy?_ Bucky yelled at him. _How exactly do you think you’ll be able to sneak a quinjet out of the middle of SHIELD’s headquarters?_

“Simple,” the Winter Soldier said, just as someone actually in uniform yelled “Hey!” from across the hangar bay. The Winter Soldier didn’t even look at him as he drew the SHIELD handgun out of his belt and shot him. The man crumpled to the floor with a scream.

_Jesus Christ! What the hell is wrong with you!?_

“This is for the mission.” Subtlety had gone out the window. The Winter Soldier sprinted for the quinjet as more shouts went up around them. Someone tried to get in his way, and he pulled out a throwing knife. It sprouted from the man’s chest before he even had a chance to raise his gun. The Winter Soldier crouched and yanked it out as he ran by, swiping it across the front of his pants before stashing it again.

The Winter Soldier killed people with an efficiency burned into his very bones. Bucky wanted to be disgusted, or shocked, as he took down another SHIELD agent before swinging up into the quinjet. But he wasn’t. Bucky was more worried about the fact that the Winter Soldier had blown their cover than the fact that he had just killed three SHIELD agents. It was the kind of thing Bucky would have done to Hydra during the war. That was the thing that disturbed him most.

_How are you going to get out of here?_ he asked, much more calmly this time.

“Quinjets have cloaking technology.” He managed to fly the thing out of the hangar before the remaining SHIELD agents had a chance to close the bay doors. Bucky had no idea what he meant, but then the Winter Soldier flipped a switch, and Bucky saw panels outside the quinjet flip up to reflect the sky. Oh. Cloaking.

_You never planned to go back to the helicopter, did you?_

“I made a reasonable guess that the helicopter would not be able to make the trip as far north as we will need to go.” The Winter Soldier set the quinjet on autopilot in a vague northerly direction and then pulled out the files and papers for the Valkyrie’s flight plan.

_Why didn’t you tell me?_ Bucky asked, even though his attention was caught by the various notes spread out before them.

“You would have tried to stop me.”

_We had a good plan. Now SHIELD is going to try to come after us! Can they trace the quinjet?_

“No. I disabled their tracking, and we are cloaked from ordinary radar.”

_You stole a fancy-looking expensive plane from SHIELD._

“Which means they will be on high-alert. So Hydra will not be able to move to find us as easily.”

The struck Bucky speechless. Considering the Winter Soldier did not seem to have as full of a grasp on human interactions and emotions, he was pretty fucking smart. Bucky wondered if that came from the conditioning or from him. Had he ever been that smart?

“Hydra knows who they are looking for. SHIELD does not. My plan is sound.”

_It would have been better if I had known about it beforehand._

“Your plan revolved around an idea of zero collateral damage. My plan was based on the best chance for success. Since you are unwilling to kill people who get in our way, I will do it.”

_SHIELD people are the good guys. That’s like taking out your own team._

“We have no team. SHIELD will just as soon kill us as Hydra.”

So maybe that was a good point too. _Well, let’s hope they find that message soon enough to start going after Hydra instead of us. If they’re busy fighting each other, they won’t bother with one spy who stole a plane._

“Yes. That is what I thought.”

_So where are we going? You can read German, right? Mine is really rusty, and I never had as good a grasp on it as Gabe._

“Yes,” the Winter Soldier said simply. He had the code laid out next to the notes of the Valkyrie’s flight plan. Among the notes were a few from the SSR on the seizure of the Hydra base and how long the plane was in the air before Captain Rogers made contact. The Winter Soldier traced a few details in German and compared them to the SSR notes. Bucky knew his mind was working, but he didn’t state any of his thoughts. He pulled up a map of Northern Canada and Greenland on the monitor of the quinjet.

“Here.” He typed a few commands in, and the flight plan displayed on the screen, superimposed on the map. He pointed at a point on the screen. “This is where we will start. We can work back along the flight plan from there.”

_That isn’t over water,_ Bucky observed. The whole area was white, probably to represent ice.

“Stark was searching too far south.” The Winter Soldier plugged in the coordinates, but the quinjet barely shifted in direction. They were going pretty far, after all.

_Does this thing have enough gas to make it that far?_

“The quinjet was designed to be able to travel very far distances very fast, with the maneuverability of a helicopter.” He pulled out the throwing knife he had used earlier and proceeded to clean off the dried blood. He also checked the SHIELD handgun, which was down two bullets, before returning it to its holster.

_So now we… just wait til we get there?_

“Yes.”

After a couple hours of flying in silence, Bucky slipped the small disk he had taken out of the archives out of his pocket and flipped it over in his hands. He looked at the words and serial number on its label.

_What is that?_ the Winter Soldier asked him. _You took it when you had control._

“Yeah,” Bucky said. He flipped it between metal fingers, unsure if he would rather just smash it.

The Winter Soldier held the disk up in steady hands and looked at the label. “A radio communiqué recording.”

_Yeah. From the Valkyrie to the main Hydra base, between Agent Peggy Carter and Captain Steven Rogers._ Bucky looked at the disc, even though the Winter Soldier had control. _These were Steve’s last words._

“Does this hold strategic value?”

_No, I just… I wanted to hear what he said. I want to hear his voice again…_

“I do not understand.”

_I know._ Bucky effortlessly took control back, and the Winter Soldier let him. He was not needed, and Bucky wanted to do this himself, so he put the disc in the player on the quinjet.

Static was the first thing to greet him. The long-ago static of old, often unreliable military radios. It was loud too. Bucky wasn’t sure why, until Steve’s voice came over the roaring sound, and he realized it was the plane.

_“Come in, this is Captain Rogers. Do you read me?”_

It shocked Bucky so much that he almost jumped. He hadn’t heard Steve’s voice in so long, and he must have really been going crazy, because all he wanted to do was scream yes at the old recording.

_“Captain Rogers,”_ Morita’s voice responded. _“What is your loca—”_

_“Steve, is that you? Are you all right?”_

It was even good to hear Peggy’s voice again. He wondered if she still sounded like this now, always perfectly commanding. He couldn’t really blame Steve for falling for a dame like that, even if it made his chest feel tight when he thought about it.

_“Peggy!”_ Steve’s clear surprise echoed back. _“Schmidt’s dead.”_

_“What about the plane?”_ Peggy asked, just collecting information. But Bucky knew where this was going. He knew what would happen to the plane.

There was a sound of switches flipping and Steve exhaling loudly. _“That’s a little bit tougher to explain.”_

_“Give me your coordinates. I’ll find you a safe landing site.”_ Peggy’s voice stuttered a bit. She was scared. She knew where this was going too.

_“There’s not going to be a safe landing,”_ Steve’s voice said, so calm, so sure. So fucking heroic. _“But I can try to force it down.”_

_“I-I’ll get Howard on the line. He’ll know what to do.”_ Bucky never thought he would hear Peggy Carter crack. But then, she’d been so obviously in love with Steve too.

_“There’s not enough time. This thing’s moving too fast and it’s heading for New York.”_ Steve paused, the roaring of the plane taking over the recording briefly. _“I’ve got to put her in the water.”_

_“Please don’t do this. W-we have time,”_ Peggy’s voice broke. _“We can work it out.”_

_“Right now, I’m in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer, a lot of people are gonna die.”_ Bucky wanted to punch Steve in his stupid face. How could one person be that selfless? _“Peggy, this is my choice.”_

There was a sound as if the engines of the plane were working harder, and a subtle whistling. No one spoke for a moment, so the sound filled the quinjet.

_“Peggy,”_ Steve finally said calmly.

_“I’m here.”_ She was quiet.

_“I’m gonna need a raincheck on that dance.”_ Steve would spend his last moments saying something like that. He was so sincere, so good…

_“All right.”_ Peggy’s breathing sounded ragged. She was crying. She tried to sound calm, even though her voice was thick. _“A week next Saturday, at the Stork Club.”_

_“You got it.”_

_“Eight o’clock on the dot. Don’t you dare be late. Understood?”_

_“You know, I still don’t know how to dance,”_ Steve joked, but it sounded thin. The roaring and whistling had gotten louder.

_“I’ll show you how,”_ Peggy said shakily. _“Just be there.”_

_“We’ll have the band play something slow.”_ Steve sounded breathless. Bucky clenched his hand into a fist, but it wasn’t his metal one. He could feel his fingernails digging into his flesh palm. _“I’d hate to step on your—”_

There was no crash or boom. Of course not. The radio broke on impact. There was just the static silence. No more wind. Bucky reached up to turn it off, but then froze.

_“Steve?”_

“No, Peggy, stop…”

_“Steve?”_

“Peggy, he’s gone… He’s dead. Stop…”

_“Steve?”_

The Winter Soldier turned off the player while Bucky replayed the conversation in his mind. _“Just be there”_ ran through his head on an endless loop, the heartbroken, hopeful, shattered way Peggy had said it years ago. Every now and then it was interrupted by _“Peggy, this is my choice.”_

The Winter Soldier didn’t know what was happening, he didn’t understand these emotions. He understood the mission, the importance of the mission above all things. He understand anger. He understood fear. But he did not understand sorrow or grief. He did not understand love.

But he understood these were things he could not ask about. So he let Bucky retreat back into their mind, while he flew the quinjet for the next several hours.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky was really glad it was summer. Because it was still freezing. So he couldn’t imagine what it would be like if they had decided to do this during winter. He thought about the irony of the Winter Soldier escaping during summer. It reminded him of a story Steve had pointed out from one of his books when they were kids. Something about gods and that winter came from a goddess’s grief over not being with her daughter. Bucky couldn’t really remember how it went, but if Steve were here, he’d be able to tell the whole thing.

They had circled above the frozen landscape once they reached the point on the map that the Winter Soldier had decided was the best place to start. All the sensors on the quinjet were going at maximum, looking for anything. They traveled along the route of the flight plan for what felt like hours. All Bucky saw was a whole lot of nothing. He wondered if this is what it had been like for Howard. He was so sure they would be able to find that plane. It was huge, after all. And the sensors on the quinjet were pretty powerful, way more advanced than whatever Howard had used in the late forties. Stealing the quinjet really had been a good idea. But so far, nothing.

Something had blipped on the screen, something metal that shouldn’t have been in a frozen wasteland of ice, snow, and rock. But they couldn’t see anything through the storm, so they had to land the quinjet and go on foot. The Winter Soldier found a jacket among the various supplies stocked on board. His own uniform, the SHIELD suit, and the jacket, however, did nothing against the freezing cold. Though cryofreeze had always been colder.

He let the Winter Soldier trudge through the snow because he seemed to be able to manage it better than Bucky. It was the same body, so he never understand why the Winter Soldier had better control over it. The shifting ground, and freezing temperature didn’t seem to bother the assassin, though.

For a moment, Bucky thought this was a bad idea. He couldn't see anything, and outside the quinjet, they were at risk of exposure. But then the wind died down briefly and they were able to see a massive metal structure jutting out of the snow.

He’d seen the blueprints for the Valkyrie, so he had a theoretical idea of how big it was. At first he thought they were looking at the plane itself, and then he realized it was just the tip of the wing. The whole thing was even more massive than he had imagined. The Winter Soldier had a hand-held sensor out and traced from the visible piece of wing along the snow, trying to determine what was under the surface. There were a few more parts of the plane exposed, otherwise, the whole thing seemed to be under several feet of snow.

_How are we going to get in?_ Bucky asked.

The Winter Soldier searched along until he found a section of metal that seemed to be part of the main body of the plane. He pulled a small tool out of his belt and turned the switch. It lit up with heat, and seemed to be exactly what they needed to to cut through metal.

_Where did you get that?_ Bucky asked.

“It was on the quinjet.” Bucky wasn’t sure how he heard the Winter Soldier over the wind, but it probably helped that it was probably just in his head. The Winter Soldier easily cut a section of the outer hull off just big enough to him to slip through. Luckily, it seemed like the interior of the plane had survived being buried under snow for more than half a century. It hadn’t caved in at all, though everything was covered with ice.

They seemed to be somewhere in the back of the plane. As the Winter Soldier wandered along frosty catwalks, they could see the bombs Schmidt was going to use to attack major cities in America. The impact hadn’t set them off, so they were probably best left buried in the snow.

The Winter Soldier moved past them to the main cockpit of the plane. There was even more snow and ice here, and the entire front third of the area was covered in snow. The plane had crashed in a nose-dive, so it wasn’t surprising that most the damage was here. Bucky didn’t even realize he had taken over control from the Winter Soldier until he drew in breath sharply. This was where Steve’s body would be. He had been on the radio when the plane crashed, and the radio would be in the cockpit.

He carefully walked around the piles of snow, towards a large, empty chair positioned in front of broken windows. A splash of red caught his eye under all the white, and he quickly bent over to brush snow out of the way. The red was joined by blue as Bucky uncovered Steve’s shield, the Captain America shield, with the white star in the center. He stared at it for a moment. The last time he had seen this shield, it had been in his hands. He had picked it up to defend Steve when he had been knocked down by a blast from one of those Tesseract weapons. The next blast had hit the shield again, and torn it out of his hands as he went flying the other direction, out the open side of the train. That was the last time he saw Steve’s face. It was the last thing he thought he would ever see. Steve’s face, Steve’s hand reaching out, Steve’s scream in his ears, as he fell and fell and fell…

Bucky dropped the shield. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t look at Steve’s dead body. He couldn’t bear to finally see him again only for him to be dead. Even though he had fought against two spy organizations just to get here. He dropped down to his knees and looked at the white star, with the rings of red and blue. Part of him wondered why the Winter Soldier hadn’t taken back control yet. He usually did that if he felt Bucky was unable to function.

But Steve had been left out in the cold so long. It was nasty grave. Captain America deserved better. And especially Steve Rogers deserved better. So Bucky picked himself up and grabbed the shield so he could use it as a makeshift shovel and start shoveling the snow around. The closer he got to the chair, the harder it got. It wasn’t just snow anymore, but ice.

His heart stopped when he caught a glimpse of gloved fingers. But then he was scrambling and digging and shoveling with his hands, the metal one being much more effective than the flesh one, until he had cleared enough snow off to find Steve’s face. It was etherally blue, under a layer of ice. Bucky was surprised to see his expression was calm, peaceful.

Bucky pulled his glove off his right hand despite the cold and laid his fingers against Steve’s frozen cheek. “Steve…” he muttered into the still air. He’d found him again. He’d finally found his way back to Steve’s side. But… It was too late. Because Steve was dead. Bucky wondered when the last time he had cried was, as he felt the threat of tears. But they didn’t come. Maybe it was too cold. Maybe it was the Winter Soldier lurking just under the surface.

Bucky leaned forward to brush more ice and snow off Steve’s face, and as he did, the handheld sensor, which the Winter Soldier had clipped to their belt when they’d entered the plane, beeped. Before Bucky had a chance to react to it, the Winter Soldier took control again and quickly pulled the sensor out. Bucky didn’t know what any of the readings meant, and was about to start screaming at the Winter Soldier when he held it over Steve’s face and chest. The sensor beeped again.

“He’s alive,” the Winter Soldier said.

_What?_ Bucky asked, too shocked to even scream. _What?_ he thought again. _What… how… that’s not…_

“His heart is beating, faintly. Most likely he froze before he died. The ice preserved him just as cryofreeze has preserved our body.”

It didn’t make any sense. He couldn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth, coming from a mind which clearly understood more than he did. Bucky was looking right at Steve, and his skin was so blue, it was practically ice itself. There was no way anyone could be alive through… But then Bucky imagined he had to look the same everytime Hydra put him in cryofreeze.

_He’s alive?_

“Barely. Yes.”

_Can you… God, can you save him? Can you wake him up?_

“It won’t be easy. There is a chance he has brain damage, even if we are able to return him to consciousness.” The Winter Soldier sounded so detached.

_We have to! If there’s a chance Steve really is alive… If we can really save him, then we have to do it!_ Bucky barely let the tiniest tendril of hope flutter in his chest. It was an odd feeling, and he couldn’t remember the last time he felt like this. No, he did remember the last time he had felt this hopeful. It was when he had come out of a delirious fog of pain to discover Steve’s face leaning over his, only to find it really was his best friend who had broken into a Hydra factory to save him.

_What do we need to do?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is so short, but it kind of is balanced by how long the last chapter was. And you know what happens in the next chapter...


	5. Chapter 5

Steve woke up slowly. First he was aware of his breath, that he was breathing. This seemed wrong somehow, but he couldn’t remember why. His body felt stiff, unused. The last thing he wanted to do was wake up. It would be so much easier to keep sleeping.

Steve opened his eyes, but didn’t move. The ceiling above him was dark, and shadowy. Based on how high up it was, the room he was in had to be large, though it seemed to be made of cement. He sat up carefully and pulled his legs up to lean his elbows on his knees. He was right, he was in some kind of warehouse. It was poorly lit, but Steve could see that there were a few other tables scattered around the room like the one he was sitting on, though they were pretty bare. There were some machines too, but he couldn’t identify what they were. He was still in his uniform pants and the undershirt he’d been wearing when he…

The plane! The crash! How was he even alive? The last thing he remembered was pointing the plane towards the water and flying full speed into a wall of ice.

He turned when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. A figure walked through a side door and then stopped in his tracks. Steve stared.

“Bucky?”

He imagined the look on Bucky’s face mirrored his own. Bucky was looking at him like he thought Steve had been dead. And Steve looked back like he knew Bucky had been dead. He saw the train, Bucky flying out of the side, just barely managing to clutch a piece of broken rail. He saw Bucky’s fingertips reach out towards him as he screamed at Bucky to hold on. He saw Bucky fall. He saw the table he had found Bucky strapped to in that Hydra factory, how he’d found him just muttering his name, rank and number deliriously. He remembered the stubborn way Bucky stayed even after the torture he’d been through. He remembered thinking he should have insisted Bucky be sent home, but selfishly wanting him at his side. He remembered watching Bucky die and thinking how it was his fault. He had let his best friend down. He hadn’t saved him. So how? How could he be standing there, staring at him?

“How…” Bucky started to say. “How do you feel? Do you, um, remember your name? What you were last doing?”

Steve continued to stare at him. When he didn’t answer the questions, a look of worry and fear crossed Bucky’s face, so he said, “Captain Steven Rogers, Howling Commandos, SSR. I fought Schmidt, took control of his bomber plane, and forced it down.”

Bucky sighed in relief and walked over to him. “Well, that’s a good sign…” he said as he sat down in a metal folding chair positioned next to the table. It looked like he was used to sitting there. “I was afraid you would have brain damage or something…”

“Bucky,” Steve said again. He swung his legs over the side of the table and propped his palms on the edge so he could look down at the man sitting across from him. “How can you be here? I saw you die.”

Bucky winced like he had been afraid that would be Steve’s first question. “No. You saw me fall.” He looked down. “I survived the fall.” He held up his left arm. “Lost my arm though.” He looked at the arm for a moment and then looked back at Steve.

In all honesty, Steve hadn’t noticed that Bucky’s entire left arm seemed to be made of metal because he had been focusing solely on his face. As soon as he saw Bucky, he knew this couldn’t be some kind of trick. Despite the long hair and the clear hardness in his expression, it was still Bucky’s face. He still looked like the Bucky Steve remembered. But he was different. Whatever he’d been through in the probable months since Steve had last seen him had taken a toll on him.

But he was _alive_.

“How?”

“Whatever they did to me when I was, you know, captured and tortured by Hydra during the war, made me survive.”

Something about the way he said that troubled Steve, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. “They were trying to re-create the super soldier serum Erskine used on me.”

Bucky nodded.

“But then, how did you—” Steve started to ask, but he was cut off.

“Oh, right! I can’t believe I almost forgot. You need to eat. I’ve been doing the best I could while you were asleep, but he says you need sustenance as soon as you wake up.” Bucky jumped up and went over to one of the other tables where a camp kitchen was set up. Steve didn't asked who Bucky meant. He spooned some kind of soup or stew out of a pot and walked back over to Steve. He held the bowl out and gave him half a smile. “It won’t taste good, but you gotta eat, otherwise you’ll probably be sick again.”

Bucky held out the bowl with his regular flesh hand and when Steve took it in his hands, their fingers brushed briefly. It felt like electricity, like a touch from a ghost. Bucky pulled his hand back quickly and he returned to his seat.

“Again?” Steve asked.

“Yeah. You were sick a lot when I first found you. I was worried for a while you would get so sick you’d die in your sleep.” Bucky sighed and ran his flesh fingers through his long hair, brushing it back out of his face. “I thought you weren’t gonna wake up…” He gave a very pointed look to Steve when he realized Steve was still just holding the bowl, so Steve raised it up to his lips and drank from it. Bucky was right. It didn’t taste good. But he ate it anyway. After living on army rations, he could eat just about anything.

“Bucky,” he said again, which made Bucky tense up.

“It hasn’t been easy,” he said quickly. “I had to find a place I could protect. Cause I couldn’t move you until you woke up. That’s where I was. I was patrolling the perimeter. But this whole place is abandoned, has been for years, and we’re so far from the closest town that we’re pretty good,” he rambled. “No,” he growled suddenly. “We can afford to stay here a little longer.”

Bucky had been through a lot, that much was obvious. But he’d always been hit hard and had bounced back. When they were kids in Brooklyn, when they were trying to get by on too little money, when he’d been captured by Hydra, when he fought by Steve’s side. But something was seriously wrong with Bucky now. He was clearly not okay. All Steve could think was, _Oh Bucky, what’s been done to you?_

“Bucky,” Steve tried again, interrupting him as he continued to talk about the building and various safety measures he’d taken. Bucky fell silent immediately and looked at him. “What happened to you?” Steve asked quietly and set the empty bowl on the table beside him.

“I…” Bucky looked down at his metal hand and opened and closed the metal fingers a few times before clenching his hand into a fist. “I don’t really remember a lot of the stuff that happened at first. I think I was pretty badly injured. Lost my arm in the fall. Woke to a bloody stump. Woke up again when they cut the rest off.”

A chill went through Steve’s body, but he stayed silent, waiting for Bucky to continue.

“They put this arm on me. It’s connected to my nerves, or something. That’s why I can move it.” He sat up and unzipped the black uniform he wore, and then pulled down the collar of the black shirt he had on underneath so Steve could see where the metal was fused to his skin around his shoulder. He zipped the uniform back up.

Bucky looked straight at him and just stared for a minute before he said, “It was Hydra. I was found by Hydra. And I tried to fight against it, against everything. But…” He shook his head. “They had this machine. Hurt like hell. It was supposed to wipe my memory or brainwash me. I don’t really know. My memory’s still a bit fuzzy around there. But they wanted to turn me into an assassin for them, a weapon, since clearly that super soldier serum had worked on me.”

He looked down at his hand again. “I think I killed a lot of people, Steve. Good people, innocent people. Not soldiers. I’m not a soldier anymore. I’m a murderer.” He snorted an unamused laugh. “Say that all you want. It’s still my body. Still killed people with these hands.”

“Bucky, what…” Steve started, but stopped when one of the machines on another table started beeping.

Bucky jumped to his feet in one quick, fluid motion and covered the distance between his chair and the table before Steve could even identify where the noise was coming from. He slid off the table and walked over. “What is that, Bucky?”

“I’m not Bucky,” was the curt response. He looked at Steve quickly and then turned back to the monitor that seemed to show an image of the outside of the building.

He was right. Whatever had just happened, the man that looked at him wasn’t Bucky. His blue-grey eyes were cold, calculating. His expression was blank as he switched between different views. It was like there was something missing. Like the man had no soul.

He kept his eyes on the screen, and then on one of the exterior views, they saw a wild dog sniffing around the wall before scurrying off. Bucky sighed and then said, “Don’t do that. You said you’d let me talk to him.” He paused like he was listening to something, and then said, “I can look at a damn camera myself.”

“Bucky. What was that?” Steve asked, slowly.

Bucky turned to look at him and seemed genuinely surprised to find him standing right next to him. Steve was relieved to see the light was back in his eyes. He had forgotten how much he missed looking into those eyes. Bucky groaned in frustration. “That was what Hydra created. Their secret weapon, their assassin. The Winter Soldier.” He ran his flesh hand through his hair again and Steve began to wonder if that was a nervous habit he had picked up. “When they tried to brainwash me, that’s what they created. He does that a lot, takes control without telling me. Used to be that I would completely black out when he did it. He paraded around in my body for years before I was able to take control again.”

“Years?” Steve asked in shock.

Bucky went completely still and looked at him in surprise. “Oh, shit. Shit, I didn’t mean to say it like that, Steve. I had this plan how I was gonna tell you everything. That’s all gone to hell. I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

“Find out what?” Steve asked, his voice very quiet. He was afraid of the answer, even though his mind was already thinking up dozens of explanations.

Bucky sighed and looked away from him. “You crashed that plane into ice. And you’ve been frozen for a long time, _years_. The war ended decades ago.” Bucky looked at him again. “It’s 2008.”

“What?” Steve stared at him “But… what?” He looked down at his hands, to see if there were any signs of having been frozen, and then he looked at Bucky again. “How is that possible? You still… If it’s really been that long, how can you still look like that? Bucky, you haven’t aged at all.”

“Me too,” Bucky said quickly. “I was on ice a long time too.” He clenched his metal fist at his side. “After every mission, they would cryofreeze me again. They left me there for years until they needed me again. Like a tool on a shelf.” Steve didn’t notice right away, but Bucky’s shoulders had started shaking from repressed rage. “No matter what I did, I couldn’t get out. And when I found out you died…” He looked at Steve again. “How could you sacrifice yourself like that, Steve?” He suddenly reached out and grabbed fistfuls of Steve’s shirt in his hands, bringing their faces close. “Why’d you have to go and be such a stupid, big damn hero? I spent all my life making sure you lived! I thought you were dead…”

Steve stared at Bucky’s face, at the warring expressions of rage, sorrow, fear playing out. He couldn’t process everything Bucky had dumped on him. How could any of that be true? But wasn’t Bucky standing in front of him, alive, after falling down a two-hundred-foot chasm proof enough that anything was possible?

“Bucky…” He hadn’t moved at all, because even if the assassin seemed to be a completely different personality that sometimes took over Bucky’s body, Bucky himself was unstable. He’d been tortured, and had fought a war, and then had practically _died_ , before being tortured and maimed, and forced to kill again. He’d never had time to recover ever since Steve had found him in the factory years ago.

“I thought you were dead…” Bucky whispered again. He carefully pulled his fingers out of Steve’s shirt and took several steps back. “God, how am I supposed to help you when I can’t even manage to control myself?” He turned and punched the concrete wall with his metal hand. A dent the size of Steve’s shield appeared, and there wasn’t even a scratch on Bucky’s hand. He breathed heavily and kept his back towards Steve.

Years.

Bucky had pretty much been a slave of Hydra for years. What was being frozen in ice compared to that? When Steve had stopped Schmidt, he hadn’t managed to stop Hydra. And Bucky was right. By sacrificing himself, he’d allowed Hydra to continue. Had there been another way? At the time, it seemed the only solution to save thousands of civilians. But maybe he could have escaped. He could have gone back. He should have gone back and searched for Bucky. How could he have left his best friend behind like that? Everything that had happened to Bucky was Steve’s fault. Because he’d never really saved him.

“Bucky, I’m so sorry…” Steve said. He wanted to find some way to comfort his best friend, but he didn’t know how. He hated seeing Bucky so broken like this. He never wanted to see Bucky in pain. It was almost worse than when he thought Bucky had been dead. Almost.

Bucky stood up straight and half turned to look at him again. “You… Don’t apologize. It’s not…” He sighed. “I know you. No one can stop you when you’re committed to doing the right thing. I wish I could’ve been there with you, though…”

“Bucky…” Steve looked at him. It seemed they were both full of regrets. But they were both alive. Even with everything. They had survived. He sighed and put his hands on his hips. “If things had happened differently, we probably wouldn’t be here now.”

Bucky looked at him, and then his lips quirked in a ghost of his trademark smirk. Steve had missed that smile. He missed the way Bucky would look at him after getting in trouble, completely unapologetic, with that smirk on his face. He missed the way Bucky used to throw his arm around his shoulders and smirk at him before dragging him off to do something stupid. Even when times were tough, Bucky would smirk at him and crack a joke, trying to cheer him up.

“That’s probably true.”

“So how did you get out?” Steve asked. “If they had complete control of you, how did you escape? It seems like you’re working with this… Winter Soldier.” The story Bucky had told him sounded like some kind of crazy science fiction story. When he was a kid, he’d read _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ , and that’s what this sounded like to Steve. He never thought that kind of thing could actually happen.

“Yeah, he’s working with me… for now. That’s why I was able to get out. Hydra’s really not happy with us right now. Who knows what they’ll do. Probably want their asset back,” he said bitterly. “Or they might just want to take us out altogether.” He paused, listening. “Okay, but the memory wipes never really worked. All they did was push me down, and yet here I am.”

Steve wondered if he would have to get used to Bucky talking to himself. It didn’t seem like the Winter Soldier was going away anytime soon, and Bucky himself seemed to have accepted the split personality. What was troubling was that he didn’t seem to realize he was doing it.

“And then there’s SHIELD,” Bucky continued, talking to Steve again. “Stole a bunch of equipment from them. So they’ll probably be trying to find us too.” He smirked, just a bit. “Though hopefully they found the note I left for them and are too busy weeding out the secret Hydra agents in their ranks.”

“What’s SHIELD?” Steve asked.

“Secret government organization. What the SSR became after the war. Founded by Stark and Carter.” Bucky looked away quickly, like he wasn’t able to meet Steve’s eyes.

Steve hadn’t thought about Peggy. She was the last one to talk to him before he crashed. She thought he was dead. The even more disturbing thought that came on the tail of that was, was she even still alive? It had been sixty years. But then what Bucky said caught up to him. “Wait, secret Hydra agents, in SSR?”

“SHIELD, but yeah. They used SHIELD’s resources to rebuild from within, recruiting as they went. So I left them a little message before stealing from them. If they’re fighting each other, it would explain why we haven’t been found yet.”

“If Hydra’s taking over the good guys, then we have to stop them. It sounds like SHIELD needs our help.”

“SHIELD would rather kill me than accept my help, I’m sure. With my kill record.”

“Bucky…”

“And you can’t dive head first into another war. You just woke up from behind frozen for half a century. You need time to readjust and heal.”

“But I feel fine.” As soon as Steve said it, then floor suddenly rushed up to meet his face, and he was only stopped from collapsing by Bucky’s arms around him.

“You were saying?” Bucky teased, but it wasn’t mean.

“Just a little light-headed. I’ll be okay,” Steve said as he leaned on him.

“Steve, you’re a super-soldier. If you get light-headed, it means there’s something seriously wrong. Sit back down.” Bucky guided him back to the table and had him sit on it. He stood in front of Steve and looked at his face. “Unfortunately, my experience is limited to coming out of cryofreeze, which is way more controlled than the ice you were sleeping in.”

This close, Steve could see all the pain, and the weight of the years Bucky carried in his eyes, even if he physically looked the same age. He really had been through hell. Steve couldn’t even imagine. It was so awful that it had broken his strong, reliable friend into two completely opposite personalities.

Bucky seemed to notice him looking, so he stared back. With Steve sitting on the table, and Bucky standing in front of it, they were barely a foot apart. Bucky’s eyes moved back and forth, searching his face, and then he leaned forward, just a hair, before snapping back and standing up straight. His eyes went back to that blank, soulless look that told Steve the Winter Soldier had taken over.

“I should check the perimeter again.” He moved back from Steve and headed for the door. “Don’t move until I come back.” And with that he was gone.

What was _that_?

For a moment there, it almost seemed like Bucky was going to… And for a moment, Steve actually wanted him to. And did the Winter Soldier mean to take over and interrupt, or had Bucky pulled back into his own subconscious? Either way, Steve was even more confused, on top of everything he had just learned that had turned his world upside down. So he lay back on the table and stared up at the ceiling, and just decided to wait for Bucky to come back rather than think of anything else.

  
  


“I don’t understand.”

_I know._

“I don’t understand.”

_I know! I don’t really get it either!_ He had surprised himself so much that he had completely retreated into the back of his own mind and had accidentally pushed the Winter Soldier forward. All he could do was scream at him to check the perimeter again or something, quickly, before something else happened.

So that’s what they were doing.

_I don’t understand._

Bucky hadn’t realized he had control again until the Winter Soldier repeated his mantra, and he realized it was in his head and not spoken out loud. He sighed and leaned back against the outside of the building before sliding down to sit on the ground. He drew his knees up and rested his elbows on them. The Winter Soldier was irked at the compromised position but didn’t say or do anything. Which meant Bucky could now sense his alter-ego’s moods and emotions. He wondered if it worked the other way too. If the Winter Soldier could feel his emotions, especially when he had been about to…

Bucky leaned forward and tangled the fingers of his right hand in his hair at the side and top of his head. Okay, so maybe he had always been close to Steve when they were growing up in Brooklyn. And he didn’t get why girls couldn’t see what he saw in Steve. And when he saw Steve with Carter, this awful feeling crept up his throat. And he… Oh god, how could he have not realized it before? He was in love with Steve, and he always had been.

But he’d always been taking care of Steve, and then he had to report for basic training, and just as soon, he was shipping off for Europe, and had to leave Steve behind. And then there was _Steve_ , all muscles and strength and Captain America. And then there was the war. And then he fell…

Which left him at now. Now he was fucked up beyond recognition. He was hardly the Bucky Steve remembered, no matter how hard he had tried to cling to his past and his memories. Not someone who deserved someone like Captain America. He knew what Steve would say to a thought like that, at least the old Steve, to the old Bucky. Even then, it wasn’t right. He wasn’t supposed to be in love with his best friend. He couldn’t even blame it on Hydra fucking with his head, because he knew he felt like this before.

So what was he supposed to do? Go back in there and pretend nothing had happened? Actually admit it and see what Steve’s reaction would be? No, definitely not. Ignoring what had almost happened was probably the best bet. But now that Bucky had admitted it to himself, everything ahead of them suddenly seemed so much harder.

He looked out at the barren land that surrounded the warehouse. The Winter Soldier had kept Steve frozen while they flew back down to Northern Canada. They found this abandoned warehouse to use, which was just far enough away from any towns that no one would bother them, but close enough that they could use the quinjet to sneak into town and steal medical supplies. He thought maybe the warehouse had been used for lumber, before they had accidentally deforested the whole area. With no industry, they abandoned the place. Convenient for a fucked up queer ex-assassin and a super soldier recently thawed out of a sixty-year frozen nap.

He scrubbed his right hand down across his face and rested his head back against the building. He didn’t really know how he was supposed to look Steve in the face now. He had only gotten used to the idea that Steve was actually alive, and then he suddenly realized he’d been in love with the guy all this time.

But Steve needed him. This world was even more fucked up than the one he’d left behind in the forties. Bucky didn’t want Hydra to get their hands on him, or SHIELD for that matter. Both organizations were the same thing, for all he was concerned, even if Carter and Stark had started SHIELD with good intentions. Bucky had found Steve and woken him up from the ice. That meant Steve was Bucky’s responsibility. So he wasn’t going to let anything happen to him.

Bucky pushed himself back up to his feet purposefully, and walked back towards the door. He could push down whatever these feelings were. Because his priority, his _mission_ , to use the Winter Soldier’s favorite term, was the protect Steve, as it had always been.

  
  


So Bucky didn’t say anything about what had almost happened. And Steve didn’t either. Bucky spent the next week watching him, making sure everything was really okay. Once he got over the initial shock of having lost decades while he slept in the ice, he was very interested in all the technology Bucky had stolen from SHIELD. When he finally saw the quinjet, his eyes lit up in wonder and he spent hours looking through everything on the plane, whereas Bucky had just relied on the Winter Soldier to figure most things out.

Part of him was just content to watch over Steve like this, and never do anything else. But after seven days, the Winter Soldier reminded him that it was too dangerous to continue to remain in their current position longer. The problem was Bucky didn’t know where they were supposed to go. He’d done what he wanted to, he had found Steve. And against all odds, Steve was still alive. So he lingered in part because he didn’t know what to do.

But the Winter Soldier was right. So he stopped Steve from looking through files the quinjet had on hand, before it was removed from SHIELD’s system. Steve looked up and smiled when he saw him. “Hey, Buck,” he said, and it hurt his chest in all kinds of ways he never thought about before. Because the more he saw Steve, the more he did want to be with him, even if it was abnormal and wrong.

Bucky dropped down into the seat beside him. “We are going to need to move soon. Now that you’ve recovered, we shouldn’t stay in this location. Hydra or SHIELD might find us here.”

Steve nodded. “That makes sense.” He looked at Bucky’s face and tilted his head slightly. “So where to? Everyone thinks we’re both dead, after all.”

“Yeah…” Bucky said slowly.

“I take it you don’t want people to know that we’re actually alive.”

Panic flared up briefly in Bucky’s chest, and he couldn’t figure out why at first. He wanted Sergeant James Barnes to remain a dead war hero, he knew that. What he’d become since then was not really something he wanted associated with how he used to be. And then he realized the panic was for Steve. If Hydra knew Steve was actually alive, they would never stop trying to kill him. But you couldn’t kill someone if they were already dead.

“It would be too dangerous.” Bucky shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anyone left to trust. Almost everyone we worked with in the war is dead. SHIELD and Hydra are threats.”

Steve looked at him for a moment, considering something. “We can’t just leave Hydra alone, since we know what they’re been doing, that they’ve been going strong even after I took out Schmidt.

“What do you suggest we do? We don’t have an army anymore.”

“We don’t need one.” Steve smiled. “The unit was always backup anyway. Sure, it’ll be harder without the other Commandos. But we should go back to our original mission. Take out Hydra facilities, make sure to destroy _all_ the heads this time.”

“That’s…” Bucky smirked despite himself, “that’s crazy, Rogers. Two men against an entire organization?”

“You already managed to escape from one, and break into another, by yourself. Imagine what the two of us could do.”

Bucky could imagine. They were both stronger, more deadly. He knew from experience that the Winter Soldier could be practically unstoppable. And even crashing a plane into ice had not managed to kill Captain America. But still, the part of him that wanted to protect Steve, to keep him safe rebelled against the idea. But he’d never be safe as long as Hydra existed, not really.

“Then our mission is to stop Hydra. Hopefully SHIELD has managed to weaken them significantly as well. They can’t be completely incompetent, after all, if the organization was founded by Stark and Carter.”

“Yeah…” Steve looked back at the screen on the quinjet, which was dark. “I read about that, from some of the files in here. It seems like a lot happened while we were out of commission.”

Bucky watched him. “Are you sure you’re up to this? You did pretty much just come back from the dead.

Steve looked back at him and smiled. “Yeah. This is the right thing to do.”

Bucky nodded. “Before we actually try to take on any suicide missions, I think there’s more training you need to do.” He stood up.

Steve looked up at him. “Training? In case you haven’t noticed, Bucky, I’m pretty strong.”

“I know. And that’s not what I mean. I can show you how to put your strength to the best use.”

Steve looked at him for a moment, and then rose to his feet as well. “You really have changed a lot. Actually encouraging me to learn how to fight.”

Bucky half-smirked at that. “If I had tried to teach the skinny kid from Brooklyn, he wouldn’t have listened.”

So that was how Bucky started teaching Steve the skills the Winter Soldier had picked up. He surprised himself by how much of it he could do while he was in control. They moved to what the Winter Soldier determined was another safe house before the training started. Sometimes the Winter Soldier would take the lead, and he was always harsher, but Steve never complained. More often than not, it was Bucky who sparred with him. They moved to two more locations before they finally decided it was time to find a Hydra target to take out.

 

Using the quinjet to intercept SHIELD messages was actually pretty easy. Keeping off the radar was a little harder, but they moved around enough that it never became an issue. The Winter Soldier was able to find the frequencies Hydra used to deliver communications. That was how they found out about the factory outside Detroit. It was small, but they made weapons there, and SHIELD didn’t seem to know about it yet.

“If we take this out, we’ll be able to restock on weapons, too,” Bucky said. He wasn’t sure if it was something he would have said back in the war. But it was something he thought of now.

While he had the black canvas and leather, Steve only had his Captain America uniform. It was torn and dirty, but it was still well-made, and the best option for fighting. So he put it on before they headed for Detroit. When he had crashed the plane, his helmet had gotten lost, so he had nothing to protect his head, but then, neither did Bucky.

They landed with the cloaking still on, and seemed to have gone unnoticed. There was obvious movement from the factory, but it was more likely that most of the production happened under ground level. Before they left the quinjet, Bucky found the piece of leather he had used before and tied back his hair to keep it out of his way. It never bothered the Winter Soldier, but he wanted to do this mission mostly on his own. The Winter Soldier would help if he was needed.

Steve picked up his shield, testing its weight since it had been a long time since he fought with it.

“You’re bringing that?” Bucky asked, watching him.

“Yeah. It’s more useful than you think.”

“No, I know that. But…” he hesitated. “People are going to know who you are if they see that.”

“As far as they know, Captain America has been dead for sixty years. Besides, it might scare them enough to see the symbol of their old enemy that they surrender.” He smiled lightly.

Bucky shook his head. “Somehow I doubt that.”

Between them, they only had three guns, but Steve was right about bringing the shield, because it was more useful than another other weapon. Bucky was able to silently slit a few throats at the entrance without anyone raising the alarm. Steve watched him do it quietly, passing no judgement. But it still made him feel dirty, like now Steve could really see the murderer he had become. So he had to remind himself these were Hydra agents. They weren’t innocent.

There weren’t many people on the surface, and they had been right about production being underground. They found the secret staircase after a bit of searching and quietly sneaked down. The underground facility was much larger, and production seemed to be working overtime. It seemed that now SHIELD knew about their existence, they were scrambling to fight back.

“So now what?” he whispered to Steve.

“Remember back in the war, when I found you in the Hydra factory? Schmidt blew the thing up so we couldn’t use any of the technology. I think that’s what we have to do here.”

“Blow it up?” Bucky looked at him. “How?”

Steve pointed to a reactor that seemed to be powering the place.

“Okay, but we do need weapons. We can’t blow everything up.”

“Then that’s the plan. You get as much as you can back to the quinjet. And I’ll see if I can destabilize the reactor.”

“No way,” Bucky said quickly. “We are not splitting up.”

“Bucky,” Steve said calmly, looking at him. “It’s okay, I can do this. I’ll meet you at the quinjet.”

Every instinct screamed at him to stay by Steve’s side, to protect him. But then the Winter Soldier chimed in, _It is a good plan._ That frustrated Bucky more than anything.

He groaned quietly and said, “Fine. But if you’re not out in five minutes, I’m coming back in for you.”

Steve smiled and nodded. “Good luck.”

“You too.”

Steve headed toward the back of the warehouse while Bucky dropped down below the stairs, keeping well away from the production line. He looked through the boxes of weapons and grabbed small, hand-held ones as he went, a grenade, a handgun, bullets. He found a box of riffles and slung a few straps over his shoulder. He glanced across the factory floor, but couldn’t see where Steve had gone. So he had to trust that he knew what he was doing.

When he had as many weapons as even the Winter Soldier could carry, he made his way back upstairs to the quinjet without running into anyone. He switched out the gun he had for one of the rifles and ran back into the factory. That was when he heard the shouting.

An alarm was going off downstairs, and Bucky could just see a flash of red and blue across the warehouse before a nondescript factory worker was sent flying. So much for stealth. He dropped down on two more Hydra agents on his side and took them out easily with only a knife. He turned down an aisle and took a running start before sliding and kicking out the legs of another, using his metal fist to finish the job.

As he got closer, he realized the alarm wasn’t from Steve being caught, it was from the reactor going into meltdown. But Steve was still surrounded when Bucky found him. And that’s when he was glad for the rifle. He took out four guys in quick succession, and Steve’s shield was a blur, injuring the rest.

When he got to Steve’s side, the first thing he said was, “That wasn’t five minutes.”

“It looked like you needed help anyway.”

“Did you get weapons?”

“Some. But we’ve got to go. This thing is going to explode.” He glanced up at the reactor. “How did you figure that out, anyway?”

“It was easy enough. Flying the Valkyrie was much more difficult.” Bucky watched as Steve used one of the moves he had taught him to take out another person. Slowly, but surely, they started to make their way back to the stairs. But not fast enough.

At some point, Bucky grabbed his arm and pushed him forward, turning around to give him cover with the rifle, before following him. They just managed to make it up the stairs and out the door before the whole thing collapsed. Steve immediately stepped over Bucky and held up his shield to protect them from burning debris as it flew through the air.

Once the shaking stopped, they looked at each other, singed and covered in dirt, but alive in front of a destroyed Hydra factory. And then they laughed. “One down, I guess,” Steve said.

Bucky nodded. “Let’s go find the next target.”

Each facility they took out after that got easier and easier. It was so reminiscent of their time in the war that Bucky could almost trick himself into believing everything was how it had been, even though looking in a mirror proved it wasn’t.

SHIELD was actively trying to stop Hydra as well, they found out. But they never made contact. Instead, they spent the next few months secretly moving across the country, taking out any Hydra bases they could find.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _But what the hell, I'm gonna let it happen to me._

Every now and then, when Steve would watch the Winter Soldier, he could see pieces of Bucky bleed through. But these were pieces of Bucky from the war. The parts he had to harden, because you couldn’t afford to be soft or hesitate against an enemy willing to do anything. The smirk, the swagger, the joking Bucky had still been there, but then the mask would come on and he would be able to put a bullet between a Hydra agent’s eyes from one hundred yards away.

That was what Steve saw when he looked at the Winter Soldier now. It was as if the parts of his friend that he had grown up with were stripped away, and what remained was the cold, precise killer, who could do what he needed to do, even if it got blood on his hands.

It had taken a while to get used to the way Bucky and the Winter Soldier switched back and forth without any notice. Bucky told him once that it was something they had started when they broke out of Hydra, but in the weeks after that, they had perfected the technique in combat. Each had different strengths, and they knew when to use them, even though Bucky seemed to be learning the Winter Soldier’s tricks.

Outside of fighting, the Winter Soldier didn’t take control much anymore. One day, while they rested at a safe house between missions, Steve stuttered over the word “you,” because he had been about to say “Bucky,” and addressing him as “Winter Soldier” seemed awkward. So he asked, “What should I call you? I don’t suppose you have a… name or something?” Even as he said it, he felt stupid.

“I am not a real person,” the Winter Soldier said, without looking away from the gun he was disassembling and cleaning. “I don’t have a name. Call me what you like.”

Steve thought about it for a moment. “What does Bucky call you?”

“He doesn’t call me anything.” This time the Winter Soldier looked up and met Steve’s eyes. It still gave him a chill to see nothing in those blue-gray eyes. “We share the same mind. We always know who the other is referring to.”

Bucky would never be that straight-forward, though, while managing to avoid the question entirely. Steve couldn’t get a handle on the Winter Soldier. Or what he wanted. But he was still a part of Bucky. “I know where you came from. You’re not totally different from Bucky.”

The Winter Soldier whipped his head up and looked at him long and hard. Steve wondered if maybe Bucky had taken over again at that comment. But no, the eyes were the same.

“At least, the Bucky from the war. He, maybe more than the rest of us, was willing to do whatever it took. Bucky must have created you from that ruthless side, in order to keep his sanity.”

The Winter Soldier watched him for a long time, but didn’t say anything. Steve knew that sometimes they traded off consciousness and the other would recede completely, unaware of the outside world. Somehow, he didn’t think Bucky was asleep inside the Winter Soldier right now. But as far as he could tell, when they spoke to each other, they had a hard time keeping the conversations totally in their head. So whatever Bucky had to be saying, the Winter Soldier wasn’t responding.

“You are… an interesting person,” the Winter Soldier said slowly. “Steve Rogers.” Steve didn’t really want the Winter Soldier to say his name, especially when it came out in Bucky’s voice, sounding completely dispassionate. “I can see why he wanted to find you so much. Even before he knew you were alive, he wanted to find your body. Properly put you to rest. I have no desires, but he desired this so much, that I decided to make it my mission too.” He looked at Steve for another long moment. It was hard to tell if he was listening to Bucky, or calculating something on his own. “He has something to say to you.”

Before Steve could react to that, the tone of voice, and expression changed completely. “—you have to go say all that crap to him?!” Bucky stopped when he realized he was the one who had said that out loud, and blinked at Steve.

Steve tried really hard not to smile or laugh. Bucky wouldn’t appreciate that, even though he was the one who always used to joke around. “He said you want to tell me something.”

Bucky groaned and ran his fingers through his hair in agitation. “I can’t believe that bastard did that. You don’t even understand this crap, as you’ve said repeatedly.” Steve realized he wasn’t talking to him. “You still don’t understand!” he said after a moment.

“What is it you want to tell me, Buck?” Steve asked calmly.

Bucky looked at him, and then sighed and crossed his arms. “I didn’t want to be forced into saying it like this.” A beat. “Okay, fine, maybe I wasn’t ever gonna say it. Satisfied?” Another beat. “I don’t know! Why the hell do you do half the things you do?”

This kind of dialogue continued back and forth, or what Steve assumed was back and forth, for a few more minutes. Only getting half the conversation, none of it made sense to him, except for the fact that Bucky was clearly uncomfortable and pissed off at the Winter Soldier, who had put him on the spot about something.

“Don’t you dare!” he said suddenly.

“Bucky,” Steve said, which got his attention again. “How come when you talk to… each other, it isn’t just all in your head?” He almost messed up and said “talk to yourself,” which he knew was not how Bucky wanted to think about it. “Why does the person in control speak out loud?”

“It’s harder to differentiate between who says what in our head.” Our head. It was strange how the two of them referred to the one body. “We can do it, but I… I forget, I guess. Why?” Bucky looked at him. “I can… try to stop, if it bugs you…”

Steve shook his head quickly. “It doesn’t. I was just wondering.”

“Oh.” Bucky opened his mouth to say something else, but then he rolled his eyes. “He asked the question! No, I can do this myself.”

“Bucky, it’s okay. Whatever it is, you don’t have—”

“I love you.”

That was probably one of the last things he expected Bucky to say. He was so surprised that he didn’t immediately react.

“I love you,” Bucky said much more slowly this time, feeling out the words. “And not just like brothers, or friends… Like… I love you.”

Steve still didn’t know how to process that. He was beginning to feel like the Winter Soldier had tricked him into this as well. What even was the appropriate reaction to something like that? He knew that back in Brooklyn, that kind of thing would have gotten Bucky beaten, or even killed. And the army wasn’t much better. But Steve wasn’t disgusted or repulsed. He was confused because he’d never dealt with anything like this before.

At first, Bucky had looked relieved, probably to finally have it out there. But as Steve continued to stand there silently, his face became less and less hopeful, until finally it settled on acceptance.

“Look, don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have said anything. Can we pretend this didn’t happen? Or…” he paused “I guess if this changes things, we can go our separate ways… I’ll still try to take down Hydra. I know this is one more thing that makes me impossible to be around. So it’s okay if you want to leave…” Without even waiting for Steve to respond, he started to turn away.

Steve reached out and grabbed onto Bucky’s arm to stop him. He hadn’t realized it was Bucky’s left arm until he felt hard metal under his hand. It was the thought of losing Bucky again that finally broke him out of his shock. He had thought he lost Bucky once, and he never wanted to lose him again. These past few months, despite constantly fighting and running for their lives, made him happy, because he had been doing it all with Bucky at his side.

“Don’t go deciding that on your own,” he said quietly and pulled Bucky back so they were chest to chest. And then he leaned forward and placed his lips against Bucky’s.

It wasn’t a very good kiss. Bucky was probably in as much shock as Steve had been a few moments ago, and he wasn’t moving. While Steve didn’t really have any experience with what he was doing. There had been a few girls who had taken pity on him, mostly because he was Bucky’s friend. And then there was Private Lorraine at SSR, who’d taken him by surprise. And then there was that one brief kiss with Peggy, before he jumped on the plane that took him to his supposed death.

Bucky seemed to finally come to his senses, because he reached up and grabbed the back of Steve’s head to pull him in closer, at the same time as he tilted his head slightly, and then the kiss went from being awkward and one-sided to fantastic.

He had wanted this. He wanted this all along. He wanted it every time Bucky would stumble home drunk off his ass, and slurred on and on about his latest conquest. Or when it was so cold that not even three blankets could stave off the chill, so Bucky would climb into bed behind him and hold him close in his arms, Steve’s back pressed against Bucky’s chest. And when he was sick and delirious and Bucky would sit with him, wiping the sweat off his face, and holding his hand and whispering that it was going to be okay, that he was going to make it. And when Steve found Bucky in that factory, and he was the delirious one, muttering to himself, until his eyes met Steve’s and there was first disbelief, then hope, then disbelief again, because it was the first time he had seen Steve after the procedure. And every time Bucky cracked a joke, trying to keep the mood light, when the war had a tendency to leave a nasty taste in everyone’s mouth. And that last mission, when he babbled on about Coney Island, Steve should have grabbed him and kissed him then, even in front of the other Commandos. If he’d known what was about to happen, he might have. But it wasn’t really the last chance. They were both given second chances, alive decades after they “died.” Both irreversibly changed from the teenagers who grew up in Brooklyn.

Oh, Steve thought like a sigh, like coming home. He'd been gone so long. Oh, all this time. He loved Bucky. He'd always known it, but he'd never realized it. He thought it was platonic, brotherly, but no. All along, this was what had been driving him. Bucky was the reason he went through with the procedure, to get to the war and back to his side. And Bucky was the reason he'd snuck into a Hydra factory alone. And Bucky was the reason he was willing to do whatever it took to stop Schmidt, even at the cost of his own life. He just hadn't realized it was love. He thought he was supposed to love someone like Peggy. But no, he'd been in love with Bucky all along.

Even super soldiers had to breathe, so they eventually had to part for air. Bucky immediately tried to go back in for another kiss, but Steve stopped him. A look of disappointment, then fear crossed his face, like he thought he had made a mistake and done something wrong even though it was Steve who had kissed him.

But Steve had only stopped him so he could say, “Me too, Buck. I love you.”

Bucky looked at him and then firmly grabbed the front of his shirt in a way that was very reminiscent of how he had on the day Steve first woke up. It made Steve wonder when he had let go of Bucky’s arm. This time there was no aggression. He grabbed Steve’s shirt so he could pull him close very deliberately and bring their mouths together. He kissed Steve as if to say, Okay, nice try, but let the expert take over.

That was when it became obvious that Steve really didn’t know what he was doing when it came to kissing. He wasn’t sure what to focus on: the way Bucky tasted, the feel of him nibbling on Steve’s lower lip, the swipe of his tongue.

And then he felt the wall at his back. Bucky pressed him into it as he continued to kiss him. Steve moaned quietly around the things Bucky was doing with his tongue. Bucky pulled back for a moment and then latched onto Steve’s neck, sucking it red. God, it felt so good, Steve thought he was going to fall apart. How long had they been tip-toeing around what they actually wanted? Not just since they started taking down Hydra. Since they were young and living in a cheap apartment in Brooklyn.

“Wanted this so long…” Bucky muttered as he licked the bruise on Steve neck. He nipped along his jaw, and then pulled Steve’s head closer again so he could kiss him hard.

Steve automatically raised his hand and tangled in fingers in Bucky’s long hair, keeping him close. He could feel that Bucky was hard against his leg, and he knew he was in a similar position. And all he could think was how he never wanted this to stop. He even completely forgot about the war, and being frozen for decades, and the torture and mutilation done to Bucky, and secretly taking out Hydra.

Experimentally, Steve ground his hips against Bucky’s, and that made him moan from deep in his throat. Both the sound and the friction sent a shock through Steve’s body. And then Bucky scrambled to find the bottom of Steve’s shirt, and both of them were thankful they had discarded the outer layers of their uniforms already. Steve helped Bucky get his shirt over his head and then moved to get Bucky’s shirt off as well.

Bucky stilled briefly. His hands were planted on the wall on either side of Steve’s head. And he seemed to suddenly be aware that Steve had a full view of the cybernetic arm. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it before. He had seen Bucky shirtless plenty of times since he had woken up from the ice. Though it had certainly never been in a situation like this.

Steve slid his hands up the muscles of Bucky’s back and traced the scar tissue along the edge of the metal on his shoulder blade. And then, without thinking about it, he leaned forward and licked Bucky’s skin where it met metal on his chest. He tasted the iron tang and the salty taste of Bucky’s skin. He moved his lips across Bucky’s chest and could just see Bucky’s eyes flutter closed.

Steve still wasn’t really sure what he was doing. But this felt right. So he didn’t stop. He kept placing soft kisses along Bucky’s skin, and at some point had started to work his way down. He occasionally swiped his tongue out to lick down Bucky’s stomach, and the kisses became less soft and innocent. He dropped down onto his knees and Bucky’s right hand moved to Steve’s hair, while his metal hand continued to support his weight against the wall.

And then Steve knew what he was doing as he placed open-mouthed kisses along Bucky’s abs and the waistband of his pants. Bucky didn’t stop him, but tensed slightly when Steve started to undo his pants. And his fingers tightened in Steve’s short hair when Steve placed his mouth on him.

He moaned deep again, and growled, “Steve…” like his world was about to fall apart. And while this was the first time Steve had ever done something like this, he got the hang of it, and reduced Bucky to “ _SteveSteveSteve_ …” until Bucky dragged him up so he could pull Steve to the one bed in the run-down shack they had found and finish the job of discarding their clothes.

It was good they were far enough away from any other living creatures, because they weren’t exactly quiet. And Steve couldn’t even care, because all he could think was _BuckBuckyBucky_ , and that he had wanted this so long, and then he was reduced to just the way Bucky was making him feel, with no cohesive thought at all.

  
  


After the initial euphoria died down, Bucky wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling. There was no questioning he had wanted that, had wanted _Steve_. And there was no question it had been fucking amazing. But wasn’t it wrong? Not that he didn’t already think he was already going to hell for everything he had done, but he never wanted to drag Steve after him.

But Steve had said he _loved_ him. So how could that be wrong? How could any of this be wrong? He didn’t want to sound like a sappy cliche, but how could it be wrong, when it felt so right? Was it only wrong because people had told him it was wrong?

And then Steve smiled at him tiredly from where he was lying on his stomach, and all other thoughts left Bucky’s head. Steve’s hair was completely disheveled, and he had a very debauched look about his mouth and eyes. And all Bucky could think was how fucking perfect he looked.

So Bucky reached out and brought his face close to kiss him softly, just because he could. And he didn’t care if it was wrong anymore. That was when he realized right and wrong and long since ceased to apply to him. He pulled back and rested his forehead against Steve’s, while lying on his side, pressed against Steve’s body.

“That was…” Steve started to say, but faltered as if he couldn’t think of a word to accurately describe what they had just done. He shifted onto his side as well and ran his fingers tenderly through Bucky’s slightly tangled hair. “Buck…” he said quietly, which made Bucky look at him. A small smile touched his still swollen, bruised lips. “We can do that again, some time, right?”

Bucky huffed out a laugh and kissed Steve again. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Good,” Steve said quietly. He seemed like he was about to drift off.

So Bucky leaned up on his elbow, which caught Steve’s attention. At his confused look, Bucky said, “Still need to keep watch. You know, with Hydra still trying to kill us and all. You sleep first. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

Steve nodded and rolled back onto his back so he could look up at Bucky. And Bucky couldn’t resist, so he leaned over and kissed him, placing his right hand on his chest. But then he pulled back and jumped out of the bed before he was tempted to stay there and ravish Steve all over again.

_Told you,_ a quiet voice said in his mind.

The Winter Soldier had been silent ever since he shoved Bucky forward and forced him to confess his feelings to Steve. He had been so silent, in fact, that Bucky had completely forgotten about him. He didn’t respond, with Steve right behind him, but when he walked back into the next room and found the clothes he had discarded, he muttered, “Thanks…”

_You left the rifle half-disassembled. You should finish that._

Bucky grunted. “ _You_ left it,” he said. But he went over to the table where the Winter Soldier had been working and finished the job, keeping his eye on the monitor as he worked, making sure there was still nothing near them.

Everything had changed in the past few hours. He wasn’t perfect; hell, he was split in half, but Steve still wanted him. And it had always been hard to deny Steve anything he wanted. Especially when, in this case, Bucky wanted it so badly himself. That was how they got into a habit of successfully taking out a Hydra base, completing a mission, and returning to wherever they were staked out to tear each others’ clothes off.

Doing something like this hadn’t felt this right since the war. But everything they were doing was right. Taking down Hydra, stopping their destructive plans. Being together. Really being together. This was good. This was fantastic. For once, Bucky thought maybe he had a chance to become whole again, especially as the Winter Soldier came out less and less, until he even rarely spoke up in Bucky’s head.

Steve never commented on the change, after months of working side by side with a constantly shifting Bucky/Winter Soldier, but he smiled at Bucky more. And when they were alone, he never hesitated to kiss him. So maybe everything really had been worth it, in the end.


	7. Epilogue

Steve had thought there was something off about this last Hydra facility. The message they had intercepted was encrypted, but it still felt too easy to find. They were always cautious going in, especially considering a lack of extreme caution was what had gotten Bucky “killed” the first time. So they treated every mission as if anything could happen, or as if they knew they would have to go up against dozens of agents with no backup. To be fair, both those things usually happened.

That didn’t stop the hair on the back of Steve’s neck from standing on end. Bucky moved through what appeared to be an old factory, silent as death. His rifle was raised and he swept it across the room slowly as he went. There was certainly evidence that Hydra had been operating out of this facility, but so far they had found no one. And they had intercepted the message that morning. There was no way they could have completely packed up and moved in that time. This place looked abandoned for months.

Suddenly Bucky swiveled around and aimed his gun at something. Steve saw him start to squeeze the trigger, but he stopped. He grit his teeth and glared at the thirty men that had just surrounded them. Even if he shot one, any of the dozens of others would easily take them down. So he waited.

Steve had raised his shield and his gun as well, but they were drastically outnumbered. He hated being right. They had walked right into a trap. He should have known better than to follow that message. All the men were dressed in black gear, but they had no insignias on their chests. It wasn’t entirely unusual for Hydra, but they had put less effort into hiding recently.

A tall black man wearing an eyepatch over his left eye stepped between two of the men. They kept their guns pointed at Steve and Bucky, but gave off no indication of wanting to shoot them. Steve could feel Bucky at his back, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw him half turn to see the newcomer. Steve kept his eyes on this man, as he seemed to be in charge.

“At ease, soldiers,” the man said.

It was probably one of the last things Steve expected him to say. Needless to say, neither he nor Bucky actually lowered their weapons. He thought Hydra would be all about threats and their obsession with death and pain. They used agents, not soldiers. How did he even know they were soldiers, anyway?

“Who are you?” Steve asked.

“My name is Nick Fury. I’m the director of SHIELD.” He didn’t appear concerned that Steve was pointing a gun at him; he stood completely at ease. Behind Steve, Bucky moved slowly and pointed his rifle at Fury as well, but he didn’t say anything.

“SHIELD?” Steve asked skeptically.

“Sorry about all this,” Fury said, waving his hand around at the dozens of guns pointed at them, but no one made any move to lower them. “I thought you would probably try to kill us if we tried to speak normally.”

“So you set up an ambush,” Steve said.

“We’ve been trying to find you two for a long time,” Fury told them. But he didn’t look at Bucky at all. He kept his attention focused on Steve. “About a year ago, we started finding Hydra facilities already taken down before we could touch them. That was when we really started to change the tide. It wasn’t until a few months later that we started to hear about two extremely powerful independent soldiers going after Hydra as well. Even then, it took us a while to hear that it was Captain America.”

Steve tightened his grip on his shield.

“We had already found out about Barnes.” He nodded towards Bucky, but kept his eye on Steve. “When we found that facility. We found the files on the experiments and procedures done on him, and based on the records of the break-in at the SHIELD Washington, DC headquarters, we knew he had escaped from Hydra. We found what you stole from Hydra, and what you stole from SHIELD, and put two and two together.” He paused. “We found the plane crash, and it looked like someone had been there first. There was no body. That was when everyone realize it wasn’t a imposter Captain America taking out Hydra facilities around the world. It was the original.”

Fury paused like he was waiting for a reaction. So Steve said, “And?”

“We’re on the same side, Cap. I set up this little talk to make you an offer. Join SHIELD.”

Bucky shifted beside him, but he still didn’t say anything, and he still kept his gun pointed at Fury. Steve glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “How do we know you aren’t Hydra trying to trick us?”

“If I was Hydra, I would have shot you already.”

“Not if you wanted to capture us and turn us into puppets.” Bucky finally spoke. His voice was gruff, trying to suppress years’ worth of anger.

“Do you think Hydra still has that kind of power?” Fury actually looked at Bucky for a moment, staring him down. When Bucky didn’t say anything else, Fury looked back at Steve. “You two have done more damage than you realize. And this allowed us to gain the upper hand in this war. Hydra has almost been stamped out. Help us finish it.” He crossed his arms. “Hydra won’t be the last threat we face, either. The world has gotten even stranger than either of you two could have imagined. Something tells me we’ll need people like you on our side.

“Your old friend Howard’s son Tony Stark is one of those people. I can’t say he’ll vouch for us, but he’s on our side. Him, and others like him. SHIELD was founded to protect people. What do you say?”

Steve actually looked back at Bucky. He wanted some indication of what he thought one way or another. But Bucky wasn’t very forthcoming. He finally met Steve’s eyes for a brief second, and then turned his attention back to Fury. It was his way of saying he would follow Steve, and stand behind whatever choice he made.

Steve looked back at Fury, who was still waiting for an answer. He glanced at the agents around them, tense but not threatening. And then he made a choice. He adjusted his shield on his left arm and slung his gun over his shoulder as he stepped toward Fury. He hold out his hand and Fury shook it.

“When do we start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is! That's the end. I hope you guys liked this story. I'm pretty happy with it. I've got to say, I've had a pretty hellish week at work, but coming home every day and putting another chapter up and then seeing all the kudos and comments has been the highlight of every day. So thanks everyone!


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